Five Signs You’re Beating a Dead Horse Screenplay and Need to Move On

I feel qualified to write about this topic, because getting caught in a rewrite loop is my Achilles heel.  I will hang onto a screenplay until it’s wrenched from my bloody fingers.  If anyone gives me a note, I feel compelled to implement it.  They must know better than me, right? 

Here are five signs you need to let that old chestnut rest, and write something new.

1)   Every time you try to work on it you feel like throwing up.  And not from excitement.

You have dragged this old nag around the ring several times, restructured, changed characters, and it’s still not working.  You dread opening up the file.  The words are so familiar that you can’t even read them anymore—they just swim before your eyes.  Yet you keep changing it and changing it and…

Yes, changing it some more.  This feeling of nausea is not the kind you get when you are trying something new, or stepping out of your comfort zone.  No, this is the sick feeling of repetition, running in place, wasting time.

Close the file, think about what you’ve learned from this project and move on.  It hasn’t been a waste of time, but a learning opportunity.  What pearls of wisdom can you take with you to your next script?

2)   You’ve sent it out to everyone you (and your agent) can think of and nothing’s happened.

Still, you believe if you just made a few changes, they’d respond differently.  Like actually call you back.  Silence is a very big piece of feedback.  Even if you get someone on the phone and they tell you WHY they passed, their reason will probably not be the whole truth. They want to stay friends with you so when you write your next project (the one that actually works!) you will sell it to them.

Don’t chase people.  It’s a waste of time.  Unless someone gives you a reason that really seems true, and they say they’d be interested if specific changes were made, it’s probably not worth your time.  Most likely, they would have bought the script the first time around if they were truly interested.

3)   You insist on rewriting it over and over because it’s not “perfect.”  

Guess what.  It never will be.  You’re clinging because you’re afraid of sending it out, of being rejected, or of admitting you’ve “wasted” time. All this fear is a form of resistance.

This is my personal favorite. I keep thinking the more I work on the project, the better the script will be.  Not true.  I now believe there is a threshold of “awesomeness” that every script has.  Once you reach this peak, most of the changes you are making on your own are probably lateral moves. It’s still the same basic story, with the same protagonist and themes.  If you completely reboot something, that’s different.  But tweaking here and there will not substantially change the marketability of the project.

Leonardo Da Vinci said, “Art is never finished, only abandoned.”  You could conceivably dress up this orange pony until the cows come home. 

It’ll still be an orange pony.

4)   You’ve been working on it to the exclusion of all other projects for more than two years.

Working on a script for more than two years is not unusual.  However, if you've been working on this script for two years, and have not been developing any other ideas, it might be time to let that script go.  If you think it’s good, send it out-- to a contest, agents, producers. If it’s bad, put it in a drawer and chalk it up as a learning experience.  While you're rewriting, you should always be working on your next project.  Outlining/pitching/researching etc.  You need to have more than one ball in the air… Otherwise it’s very difficult to forge a career that lasts. Most professional screenwriters have a ton of abandoned projects.  It’s just part of the creative process.  Again, what wisdom have you gained from this script?  What fatal disease infected your horse, and how can you avoid this malady in the future?

Sorry, but I’m loving belaboring the horse metaphor.

5)   Your script doesn’t have a strong enough hook.   And deep down, you know it never will.

This is probably the single most common reason people should give up on a screenplay.  There is no central conceit or conflict or character that holds our attention.  And no matter how much you pussyfoot around this fact, it’ll never change.  The central nugget of the story is just not compelling or original enough.

Some ideas are good, and some are bad.  Most fantastic writers have worked on dog projects.  Not everything is a chunk of gold, some are made of coal and worse.  Be proud of yourself for trying this idea and learning something about what makes a good movie.

Once you’ve slaved and slaved over a bad idea, you pay a lot more attention to the “concept” of your next one. This is probably the single most important part of the creative process.  Does the idea have enough juice, enough humanity, enough genuinely engaging conflict and originality to pull a viewer in?

If it’s a generic idea, it’ll be a generic script.

In conclusion, veterinary students, abandoning a project is not failing.  It’s just part of the creative process.  Not every idea will work.  One of the reasons Pixar is so successful is that they are not afraid to face the music and reboot or bail on a project when necessary.

Work hard on each script.  Work smart.  Know when you’ve got something and when you don’t, no matter how hard you’re trying.

Most importantly, trust your INSTINCTS. 

We all know when our horses are dead.  It’s just really hard to bury them.

WRECK IT RALPH Structure Breakdown

Here is another in my series of story structure breakdowns.  Today I’m focusing on WRECK-IT-RALPH, the animated film starring John C. Reilly as a “bad guy” video game character who just wants to be the hero for once.

Don’t we all?

ACT I

ORDINARY WORLD-- Ralph’s a video game character in “Fix it Felix.”  He’s the bad guy—his job is to break stuff so Felix (the hero) can repair it. Ralph is bummed because he can never win a medal. While all the other “Felix” characters hang out after work in the penthouse of an apartment building partying, Ralph is stuck sleeping in the dump.  He goes to ‘Badanon’ meetings and tells the other bad guys all he wants is to be a hero.

(see how clearly the writer is setting up Ralph’s goal/desire?)

INCITING INCIDENT-- There’s a 30^th Anniversary party for the "Fix It Felix" game and Ralph’s not invited.  He decides if he wins a medal, they’ll include him.

He goes to a bar, to try to find a medal in the lost and found.  Once there, he meets another game character who tells him he can fight bots in a game called “Hero’s Duty” and win a medal.

Ralph enters the "Hero’s Duty" game.

There are guns and soldiers killing insects, blowing up eggs.  It’s totally violent.  Ralph FREAKS OUT.

The other Felix characters discover Ralph is missing and without a bad guy, their game won’t work. The video arcade owner puts up an “Out of Order” sign on the console.  Oh no—when this happens to old games, they get carted off and destroyed!   

While trying to escape “Hero’s Duty” Ralph sees a shiny MEDAL OF HEROES.  He climbs to try to get it.  Felix comes to Hero’s Duty to find Ralph.  He meets a tough sexy soldier named Calhoun (voiced by Jane Lynch.)  Ralph punches the glass that protects the medal, steps through some dangerous exploding eggs, and grabs the Medal.  He’s got it.  Hurray!

ACT I TURNING POINT—But suddenly Ralph is scooped up by an out of control space bot and crash lands in a weird Candy/Go Kart game called “Sugar Rush.”  Everything is made of candy and its like nothing Ralph has ever seen before. (28 minutes in) 

(See how he enters a whole new world at the end of ACT I?)

ACT II

FOLLOW THE TRAJECTORY OF THE FIRST TURNING POINT: Ralph’s medal has flown out of his hand and landed on top of a candy cane.  As he tries to climb to get it, he meets a little girl named Vanellope.  She needs the medal to enter a Go Kart race.  She takes it and runs away.

Felix and Calhoun realize Ralph and the cybot are in Sugar Rush and that if they don’t destroy the cybot, it will destroy every game in the arcade. (stakes!)  Felix and Calhoun head to Sugar Rush.

We meet the bad guy—King Candy, the ruler of "Sugar Rush."  He’s a little twisted and has two donut henchmen.

Vanellope uses the medal as a coin to enter the big Sugar Rush Go Kart race.  Everyone thinks she’s a freak because she “glitches.”  Ralph chases her, trying to get the medal.  He’s captured and brought to King Candy’s castle.  They want to imprison him, but he escapes.

The other girls make fun of Vanellope.  Ralph defends her and scares the girls away.  He wants the medal and she wants to win the race.  They decide to join together.  If he helps her win the race, she’ll get back his medal.

Felix and Calhoun talk about what happened in the past—a game character went “turbo” and tried to take over another game.  He destroyed that game and others.   As they are walking, they get trapped in quicksand, but in the nick of time are saved by Lafffy Taffy.  United by danger, Felix and Calhoun fall in love.

Ralph and Vanellope break into the Kart building place and make one.  It’s kind of messed-up looking, but Vanellope loves it.   King Candy sees her, says she must destroy the car and that she’s not allowed to race.  She and Ralph escape him.

Ralph and Vanellope go to her house.  It’s kind of like Ralph’s dump. Vanellope explains that glitches can’t leave their games.  Ralph builds her a race track.  She learns to drive, says she’s going to win!

King Candy goes into the game’s “code” and takes the Hero’s Duty medal.

MIDPOINT-- King Candy brings Ralph the medal.  He says that Ralph must do what is right.  Vanellope can't be in the race.  If she wins, the customers will see her glitch and “Sugar Rush” will be Out of Order.  She and everyone in the game will die.

BIG GLOOM-- Vanellope makes Ralph a homemade medal that says he’s her hero.  Ralph tries to talk her out of the race.  Tells her she can’t be a racer. 

She discovers Ralph sold her out to King Candy.  He wrecks their Kart.  Vanellope cries, falls to the ground, says, “You ARE a bad guy.”

Ralph picks up his Hero’s Duty medal, and goes back to “Fix it Felix.” Everyone’s gone.  Felix has been captured, didn’t come back, and the Video Arcade owner’s going to pull their plug in the morning.  One of the few remaining characters tells Ralph he can live alone in the penthouse.

ACT II TURNING POINT-- Ralph throws away the Hero’s Duty medal.  He sees the one that Vanellope made him, then notices her picture on the side of the Sugar Rush game console. She WAS a racer.  King Candy must have destroyed her code.  That’s why she glitches. If she wins the race, the game will be reset and she won’t be a glitch anymore.  Ralph has to tell her!

ACT III

RACE TO THE CLIMAX-- Ralph races back to “Sugar Rush.”  He finds Felix and asks him to fix Vanellope’s Kart. He promises never to be good again.

Ralph finds Vanellope, apologizes, gives her the repaired Kart.  They all head to the race!

CLIMAX—Vanellope is racing and wants to win.  She’s about to achieve victory, but Calhoun comes back, has to kill the cybot.  She tells everyone they’re in danger.  Go to Game Central Station now!  All the game characters start to flee.

We discover that King Candy is “Turbo!”  He chases Vanellope.  She uses her glitch to escape from him. Vanellope crashes.  The whole game is falling apart.  Ralph grabs her.  She says she can’t leave the game, that he has to leave without her.

Ralph faces off with Turbo and defeats him.  Vanellope’s about to be killed by the cybots.  Ralph sacrifices himself to save her.  He destroys stuff.  Accepts who he is.  Vanellope wins the race, and the whole game resets.  “Sugar Rush” goes back to the way it was before Turbo arrived.

BRIEF RESOLUTION-- Vanellope is the “queen” of Sugar Rush, but is a benevolent ruler/racer.  “Fix-it-Felix” is back to normal and Ralph is taking it “one game at a time.” He and Vanellope will always be friends.

Felix and Calhoun marry and Ralph hangs out with his friends in the penthouse.

The End!

TAKE ACTION.  Think about your own story.  Do you have a strong goal for your main character up top?  Ralph wants that medal, and this object becomes something that drives him forward and creates twists and turns in the plot.  Does your character enter a whole new world at the end of ACT I?  What happens at the midpoint of the movie that turns the story in a new direction? How does it all fall apart for the hero, and then what DECISION does the protagonist make at the end of ACT II that drives him/her toward the climax?

How does he or she face the bad guy in ACT III and TRANSFORM?

Have fun!

P.S.  Do you have a really cool clever facet to your story?  In WRECK IT, all the candy in "Sugar Rush" functions as part of the plot-- providing obstacles, etc.  Watch it if you want to find out what happens in the Diet Coke and Mentos cave...

SOLVE YOUR STORY STRUCTURE PROBLEMS IN 11 EASY STEPS

Jule Selbo, a colleague of mine and fantastic screenwriter, has designed an amazing story structure model which I’ve been using in my classes and loving.  It's simple, and focuses on the protagonist’s goal as the primary structural engine to drive the plot.

These 11 Steps will work for any genre of film, and are elaborated in Selbo’s book, “Gardner’s Guide to Screenplay:  From Idea to Successful Script.” (available through Amazon)

So you can see how it works, I've described the 11 Steps for the classic film noir DOUBLE INDEMNITY.

For those of you who love the film, you know the main character is Walter Neff (played by the excellent Fred MacMurray), and the femme fatale is Phyllis Dietrichson (Barbara Stanwyck, in all her black widow glory)  For those of you who don’t know the film, watch it—it's amazing.  One of Billy Wilder’s best.

ACT I

1       1) Character’s Overall Want:  Walter Neff is a cocky insurance salesman.  He meets Phyllis Dietrichson and falls in lust.  He wants her.

         2)  Character Logically Goes for his/her want: He flirts with her and shows up at her house when he knows her husband won’t be home.

   3)  Character is Denied:  He discovers the reason she wants to buy life insurance is so she can kill her husband.  Walter says, “You can’t get away with it.”  Phyllis says, “I think you’re rotten.”  He says, “I think you’re swell, as long as I’m not your husband.”  He walks out.

         4) Character Gets a Second Opportunity to Achieve the Overall Want:  Phyllis comes to his apartment, complains that her husband is abusive.  Walter is super attracted to her (it’s Barbara Stanwyck, of COURSE he’s attracted!) and he’s always had this dream of pulling off the perfect insurance scam.  He figures out a way to outwit his boss at the insurance company and be with her.  He decides to help her kill her husband.

ACT II

         5) There are Conflicts About Going after the Second Opportunity:  They could get the death penalty.

         6)  The Character Goes for it Anyway:  Neff tricks Mr. Dietrichson into signing the insurance policy.

         7) All Goes Well:  They plan the murder, and it goes off without a hitch (aside from a minor witness who tries to talk with Walter on the train.)  They kill Dietrichson, and leave his body on the tracks. Still, as they walk away from the body, Neff says in classic noir voiceover, “I couldn’t hear my own footsteps, I was a dead man.”  (this is 59 MINUTES in, the MIDPOINT of the screenplay.)

   8) All Falls Apart: Walter’s boss, Keyes, gets a hinky feeling and decides there’s something fishy with the case.  At first he thought it was an accident, but now suspects it’s homicide.  Walter tells Phyllis she should NOT file the claim.  Being a femme fatale, she files anyway.  Neff befriends Phyllis’s stepdaughter Lola and discovers that Phyllis probably killed Lola’s mother so she could marry Dietrichson.  And to make things worse, Phyllis is sleeping with Nino Zachetti (Lola’s boyfriend.)  Neff now knows that Phyllis is a total snake and will destroy him. 

         9) Crisis:  (Note, this step is always a DECISION made by the main character) Neff decides to kill Phyllis.

ACT III

   10) Climax:  Neff goes to Phyllis’s house.  She shoots him first.  She’s about to finish him off, but realizes she really loves him and stops.  He shoots and kills her.  Neff tells Zachetti to go away, be with Lola (He redeems himself.)

   11)  The Truth Comes Out to Make Things Right:  Neff has confessed everything on a tape recorder.  Keyes discovers Walter, wounded, and says he’s all washed up.  Neff’s going to the gas chamber.

The End.

What I love most about this structural model is that the 11 steps focus on your main character’s "want."  This creates lots of forward momentum in the story-- the protagonist is always trying to get something and facing obstacles.  Plus, your main character's goal  can change.  Notice how in DOUBLE INDEMNITY, Neff’s goal switches from wanting to be with Phyllis, to wanting to destroy her and save himself? This also supports his character arc from “cocky ladies man” to “vulnerable, desperate dupe.”

The story is told in flashback (we start with Neff racing away from Phyllis’s house after being shot) and as he tells us what happened, we see it onscreen through the 11 Steps.

If you are just starting to outline your movie, or if you are stuck in your pages and can’t see the forest for the trees, try using this structural model. 

Take Action!  Set a timer for 10 minutes, and dash down what the 11 steps might be for your main character.  I guarantee you will find a spine for your protagonist that will carry him/her through to a big finish.

And if you want to throw in a dash of Joseph Campbell, make sure that in the climax, the hero has to face the darkness in him/her self.

Go!

HARMONY KORINE, FEMINIST?

Nothing says Easter Sunday quite like SPRING BREAKERS.  So with my entire family out of town, and my pockets fortified with foil covered chocolate eggs, I drove to the theater and purchased my ticket.

The week before, in a class where we are studying classic three-act structure, one of my students said she’d seen the movie and thought it was structureless. “No main character, it was stupid, it wandered….” Of course, now I had to check it out.

Let me begin by saying that this was one of the most sexually disturbing and violent films I’ve ever seen.  So some of you might want to excuse yourselves right now.

Yeah, I knew you’d still be here.

I did, in fact, discover that the film IS classically structured.  And a perfect example of how a shifting main character can work.  Yes, there are whole stretches of sexually demeaning imagery around women and voice over that endlessly repeats (authentically, for those of you who have never endured the mind numbing repetitiveness of a teenaged diary.)  And yes, it’s skeevy, and yes, I found myself embarrassed and mortified several times throughout.  However, the film also left me deeply exhilarated.

What the hell?

As the parent of two teenaged boys, there’s nothing more frightening to me than young people who are depressed, nihilistic, and who choose violent avenues to break out of their stupor.  But while I expected this of the film, I did not expect it to ultimately be movie about female empowerment.

The movie starts by focusing on a young religious college student played by Selena Gomez.  She and her friends are bored, want to go to Florida for spring break, but have no money.  What’s a girl to do?

Rob a crappy diner of course.

What follows is a debauched week of drinking and drugs (hilariously described in voiceover by one of the girls as “magical”) and ends with the girls being arrested.  The judge tells them they won’t be charged with narcotics use because no drugs were found on their person (no s*** Sherlock, they’re wearing bikinis.) They have a choice—they can either pay a fine or spend two days in the county jail.

Enter James Franco. Now, this is not your mother’s James Franco—no PINEAPPLE EXPRESS stoner high jinks here.  He plays a low life drug dealer with grilled teeth, skankily cornrowed hair, who drives a Mustang with his street name, “Alien,” on the license plate.  He pays the girls’ bail and at this point, I’m wanting to shout, “Run Disney Princesses!”

Franco does a beautiful job, especially in a moment where he tries to convince a scared Selena not to go home.  But even using his considerable pimp tricks, he fails and she leaves (adios main character number one!)  Now Alien becomes the protagonist.   He leads a fantastic sequence where he brags to the girls about all of his possessions, and to prove his vulnerability to the remaining three, sits at his rickety white piano in the backyard of his stucco tract house and serenades them with a Britney Spears song. 

If course, in a scene that is so INSANE I can’t even describe it here, they all fall in love with each other.

This being classic three act structure, it all goes well for awhile, then it all falls apart.  One girl is shot in the arm, and leaves.  Now there are only three.

And there’s a decision to be made.

Alien must kill the antagonist, a drug dealer who (of course) was his mentor and best friend.  Now Korine is really mocking classic story structure.  Really?  We’re going to have a big Scarface shoot out in St. Petersburg?  When Alien hesitates, the girls call him “scaredy pants,” and we begin to see just how big these tiny bikini bottoms are starting to get.

In a crazy homage to James Bond and Charlie’s Angels, the three cut across the water in a speedboat.  Alien wearing a day glo yellow t-shirt, and the two girls in matching bikinis and pink unicorn face masks.

As they charge the bad guy’s compound, Alien is shot dead (adios protagonist number two!)  But we don’t linger.  The girls continue on, guns blazing, until they take down every henchman and shoot the bad guy in his hot tub.  He deserves to die, by the way, because he’s wearing a necklace shaped like a giant ice cream cone.

On their way back to the boat, the girls kiss dead Alien.  Remember ladies, it’s always important in the story to thank your mentor.

And here’s where I’M LOVING IT. For the entire movie, we have been bombarded with images of women as objects.  Asses shaking in bikinis, bare breasts bobbing, beer bongs spewing, and now we realize we’ve been tricked. 

Selena wasn’t the main character, and neither was James Franco.

The protagonist is ultimately young womanhood itself.

We don’t even remember the two remaining girls’ names.  It doesn’t matter.  They are blonde, indistinguishable.

Every Girl.

They look good in a bikini and still like unicorns. They’re not gonna get raped or abused or subjugated (which is where our expectations lead us.)  Hell no.  Every girl gets out of there alive.  And all the bad MEN die.

They really are Disney heroines!

Yeah… SPRING BREAKERS embraces all the conventions of objectification, but it also is a completely original take on female power.

It’s ironic, hilarious, and a film that’s willing to take risks and mash up genres and themes in a way that’s disturbing and funny.

As I left the theater, I reached into my pocket and munched on my last remaining foil covered egg.  In a movie landscape that often serves up fossilized concepts and tired cliches, finally, a movie that pushes the rock away and rises from the dead.

Where else could I possibly want to spend my Easter Sunday?

THIRTEEN RULES FOR GIVING NOTES TO WRITERS

Giving notes to a fellow writer can be traumatic, nerve wracking and when done properly, extremely helpful!

Here are thirteen great rules to remember.
  
http://www.filmmakingreview.com/thirteen-rules-for-giving-notes-to-writers/

For Anyone At a Crossroads...

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Our Post 9-11 James Bond

Spoiler Alert...

 

What the hell has happened to James Bond?  Gone are the days when he’d kick Dr. No into boiling water with a gun in one hand and Pussy Galore in the other.  He’s dark now.  He has childhood trauma.  And in the latest film, SKYFALL, he goes all Joseph Campbell.  Even the villain, deliciously played by Javier Bardem, is trying to claw his way back into his “mother’s” womb.

I’m not the first to notice that James has changed.  In screenwriting circles it was all the buzz a few years ago that they were “fleshing out” the character.  And we saw evidence of it in CASINO ROYALE.  Not only did we get one of our best Bonds (Daniel Craig) but we got a new character.  A guy who actually fell in love.  Who could sit in a shower, clothed, with a traumatized woman and comfort her.  The world outside was the same—villains, chase sequences, gadgets—but Bond’s inner life had noticeably deepened.  He was wounded, more fragile than he’d been.  And I’d argue that it all started with 9/11.

I don’t claim to be a Bond expert, but even I know that though technically he’s British, Bond has always been a reflection of American culture and confidence.

Pre 9/11, we still had that cocky attitude about our place in the world.  And it was reflected in the movies.  Sean Connery, Pierce Brosnan, Roger Moore, there were no chinks in their Bonds.  They were calm and cool and incredibly collected.

How far we’ve fallen.  The Daniel Craig incarnation still looks ravishing (I’m still recovering from that glimpse of him in the powder blue bathing trunks in ROYALE), but this guy has issues.  In SKYFALL he drinks too much, flunks the test to be an MI6 agent, and is too tired to even get it on with Moneypenny.  He has two tasks—save the agents who have been compromised by the release of a top-secret list, and rescue M.  He fails on both counts.

And yet, this new version of Bond has pulled me in.  It may be a girl thing, but I’ve always hated the old James.  He was kind of a cipher, and the movies were boring. Boat chase, shoot out, blah, blah, blah, car chase, girl in a bikini, blah, blah, blah… But this new guy is someone I can get into, root for.   Yeah, he does basically tell Moneypenny she should just be a secretary, and he barely blinks when his “love interest” dies, but we can still hope.  Maybe in the next film he’ll find a woman to love (WHO DOESN’T GET SHOT IN THE HEAD!)  Maybe he’ll encourage a female agent to be good at her job.  He already kicks ass on people who are actually threatening something important to him.  And I wonder if all this will bring a whole new fan base to the franchise.  Women.

It’s rare that we have the opportunity to analyze a single character over time, but Bond is the perfect litmus test for our country’s emotional temperature. We’ve definitely crossed some threshold when a homosexual attempted seduction of Bond becomes a setpiece for the villain, and when the climax can only be played out in Bond’s ancestral home, where he and the bad guy have the same “mother.”   And she dies.

BAMBI, this is not.  But there’s something primal here. This James Bond is crawling into the Hero’s Journey cave and facing his Ordeal.

Bond is no longer perfect.  He’s just as fucked up, tired, and old as the rest of us.  The way the SKYFALL script plays out, it’s as if the other Bonds never existed.  Are we wiping the slate clean?  Admitting we were never perfect and suave, that it was all just an act?

As a country, we’re definitely walking with a limp after the financial meltdown and recession and wars in the Middle East.

Is it possible that Bond is becoming human? 

I’ll be waiting, James. 

Just keep wearing that powder blue Speedo.